


Like Peas in a Pod

by Notquitegreylo



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Autumn, Brief mention of assault, Even I Don't Know Who I Am Without It, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Friendship, Fluff, Frens to the End, Friendship, I mean, I'm Sorry, If You Squint - Freeform, Love, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of Pregnancy, No Smut, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and i cannot stress this enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26654698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notquitegreylo/pseuds/Notquitegreylo
Summary: Found family. That's it. That's the tweet.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico, Dopheld Mitaka/Paige Tico, Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Jannah/Phasma (Star Wars), Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey & Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 11
Kudos: 45
Collections: The PL First Birthday: Anniversary Exchange





	Like Peas in a Pod

**Author's Note:**

> This goes out to my Unknown Regions frens. They've become my own little pod in such a short time. A more encouraging bunch of peas you could never hope to find. Thank you for inspiring many of the warmest fuzzies in this little piece.
> 
> TW: There is a brief mention of pregnancy (not Rey). If you would like to skip those three sentences, stop reading after _...to shoot off into the stratosphere._ and you can safely pick back up at _Theirs wasn't a perfectly pleasant..._
> 
> TW: Please note that there is also a very brief mention of assault. NO details are given. It is mentioned in passing. If you would like to skip this paragraph, stop reading at _Theirs wasn’t a perfectly pleasant_ and resume at _And then, the day Finn and Rose..._
> 
> TW: Cancer is mentioned briefly and is referenced as the Big C. It's touched this life in a sucky way so I do that not to make light of it, but to deal with it in my own way. If you would rather not read these two sentences, stop reading at _...regular zoom calls to keep up on their adventures out West._ and you can safely pick back up a few sentences later at _The only bright spot in that..._ It is mentioned in one more sentence again a few paragraphs down. Safely skip it by ending at _...she had locked herself into at the junkyard_ and pick back up at _No, nothing in life..._

  


Most pods have five to six peas in them. That’s what they say, anyway.

Smacking the life out of the alarm clock with an equal vengeance at the same time each morning is just one of the many reasons that Rey Niima adores her roommate, Rose Tico. Twin reverence for the four food groups of Mac-n-cheese, tea, biscuits, and crisps is another.

No, she thinks. It’s not many reasons. It’s a million reasons. Rey loves Rose like a pea loves its pod.

She feels safe and warm and cared for whenever Rose is around. Even if it is to rattle Rey's cage about not “ going after that D” every time Paige’s co-worker Ben is around.

Even all these years later, Rose still sometimes knows better what Rey needs than Rey does.

From the moment Rey was ushered into the front hall of Jakku’s Home for Children fifteen years ago, Rose had decided that Rey was hers and that she would keep her. When, at six, all you’ve ever known has been suddenly ripped from you, you cling to those sorts of people. Even if those people are only a few years older than you.

Soon thereafter, Rose, her older sister Paige, and Rey became an inseparable trio. Oh, the shenanigans they would get up to! Competing for how many Twizzlers could fit in their mouths before gagging, rewatching the Galaxy Wars Trilogy for the eleventy-hundredth time, and prank calling Plutt, that nasty-jowled owner of the junkyard, were some of their favorite antics.

Rey sobbed just as hard as Rose did the day Paige aged out and left the home to set out on her own. But having earned a full Engineering scholarship to Chandrilla University, Paige was excited about her newest adventure. Their usually kind caretaker Maz just rolled her eyes at the pair huddled and snotting on Rose’s bed and let them have at it.

Life resumed, as it does. Until the day not long after, when Rey was placed in the foster home of the Canady family. What started out as a possible bright future in a home with another teenage girl quickly turned.

Bazine, the Canady’s biological daughter, threw out sneers and nasty reminders of Rey’s orphan status like confetti. The daily drudgery included endless chores, _one might argue free child labor_ , and constant reminders that she could be sent back any time they chose.

The brightest spot in this dark time at her first and only foster home placement was the arrival of Finn Storm: _“It’s not a stripper name, I promise”_. He joined her pod the moment he entered the house one night, with an optimism borne out through his wide toothy grin and bear hugs. Rey was never without a big brother figure by her side again.

Ever her champion, Finn helped her fend off Baz’s barrage of insults, reminding her every day how she was enough just as she was. Upon turning 18, Finn was asked to leave the Canady house. He still managed to come up almost every weekend and take Rey out for ice cream, catch up on her life, and encourage her to keep reaching for the stars.

As soon as Baz left for college, only months later, Rey found herself being moved back to the group home when Mr. and Mrs. Canady decided they no longer wanted to foster. Finn gently took this tough, tender teenager who’d already lost so much, into his arms and held her. Nuzzling his chin against the top of her head, he firmly reminded his Peanut that she _absolutely_ was loveable.

That first weekend she found herself back under the care of old lady Maz, Finn got to meet the indomitable Rose. She had charged out the front door ahead of Rey, kicking her way viciously through the orangy-red leaves strewn across the walkway, demanding to know who this Finny was and why her Rey wanted to spend a Sunday with him rather than her.

They never went for ice cream without Rose again.  
  
Until the day came when Rose earned her own scholarship and headed off to room with Paige at Chandrilla U. Old Maz, wise even beyond her seven decades, had lived long enough to recognize the same eyes in Rey she’d seen in different people. So, she allowed her to wallow for three entire days.

At the end of the third day, she marched into the bedroom and flounced down upon Rey’s bed with a flourish, exclaiming, _“Time to pull your head out of your ass, dear child. What can we do to help you graduate early so you can get over to Chandrilla with the rest of your pod? Hmmm?”_

And that is how Rey found herself, less than two years later, moving her meager belongings into the room vacated by Paige at Rose’s University housing. Snuggled back in with the sassiest pea in her pod.

When - too soon - college graduation loomed for Rose, Rey had started making an uneasy peace with the fact that her sister-friend would possibly need to take a job in another city and move away from her. So, when the day finally came for Rose to share the inevitable, Rey had braced for impact.

Only, what Rose said instead was that Paige had found her a position at the company she worked for down the street and would Rey mind _if they continued to be roommates for just a little while longer._

Rey had guffawed. So much louder than her usual snort-laugh that Rose was concerned.

Rey had been slowly munching on a twizzler to keep her mouth from too easily forming the worried smile Rose said she always wore when receiving bad news. Swooping across the couch, Rose had reached around, thwacking Rey’s back before Rey could register what was happening. Drawing in a startled breath, Rey all of the sudden really was gagging on a sharply inhaled piece of the red candy.

And that is the stuff that epic friendship legends are made of!

  
_____________________

“Hugs” integrated into her little pod not many months after that. Armie Huxtable had Rey to thank for the affectionate moniker, although he made every effort to let her know how much he detests the nickname. His pompous vocabulary and uptight demeanor initially threw Rey off him. His adoration for her Rose, however, made it a quick assimilation. Although she will never admit that to him.

The day Rose barged into their shared one-bedroom apartment and informed her she’d met the most insufferable ginger-haired man at the grocery store, Rey had a feeling. It came as no surprise to anyone when they ran into each other again days later and instead of trading insults, they traded digits.

Poor Armie, he never knew what hit him. Within a few months, Rose informed Hugs that she was going to marry him and he better fall in line and believe it.

Even strong silent Ben had taken a turn at trying to soothe Armie’s utter shock.

Sighing, her mind and heart settles on Benjamin Solo. Ben. Her Ben.

She would say he is her everything, but that wouldn’t be true. He was the missing pea in their pod. His presence takes up literal and metaphorical space in Rey’s life.

The day she accidentally bumped into him as she was bringing lunch to Paige on her break, her world shifted on its axis. As his huge warm hands wrapped around her arms to steady her, she looked into his warm whiskey-colored eyes and she felt more unsettled than she had when she started to fall to the floor.

Ben revealed none of the same feelings when their skin connected that day. But years later, when Rey finally got the courage to kiss him, while tipsy at the Cantina after work one night, she realized he had harbored all the same yearning she did.

That day was one of the best days of Rey’s life. Because Ben? Ben kissed her back like he’d been longing to for just as long as she had. And as that realization dawned on both of them at the same moment, they each admitted they “felt it too.”

Rey quickly became a permanent fixture at Ben’s apartment. So much so that he asked her to just _move in with him, already_ , a short time later. Rose had been the only roommate she’d ever known, and she adores Rose. But Ben snuggles her awake each morning in a way that is pure bliss. He makes her feel seen and loved and cherished in a way she didn’t even know she was still looking to be. And his big sexy redwood tree of a body certainly lights her up in ways Rose never did!

  
______________________

Looking out across the row of her “family members” for her own college graduation, Rey gets misty-eyed as she takes in each precious one of the peas in her pod. Each heart bonded to hers in ways she never could have imagined. Never would have believed, given the sorrowful start she had in this life.

And yet there each of them are. Sitting in the middle of a 100-degree heatwave at the end of a bright sunny May day. Cheering her on silently with their enthusiastic thumbs’ ups and beaming smiles. Tightly clustered together, as usual, whenever possible.

Rey lets her mind drift back to how Armie, just that morning, had asked Paige and Rey for Rose’s hand in marriage. So old-fashioned and proper, their Hugs. Now she watches as he sits rigid in the seat. The only softness revealed in the gentle way he holds Rose’s hand in his own. Rey hopes they’ll go for a fall wedding because there is just something about the colors and scents of autumn...

They’d picked up a few stray peas along the way that came and went. Gwen Phasma, Ben’s assistant, moved away with her long-time partner Jannah when Jannah’s job had her relocating across the country. Although sad to see them move, they made time for regular zoom calls to keep up on their adventures out West.

And they lost a precious pea the day Old Lady Maz lost her fight with the Big C. She, Rose, Paige, and Finn stood around Maz’s hospital bed holding the creped hands of the only mother any of them had ever really known. And when she’d breathed her last, they held each other.

The only bright spot in that sorrowful memory was one Dr. Doph Mitaka, who seemed to make their usually composed Paige forget her own name each time he stopped to check in on the group. Consoling them as best he could at the end, they all took notice of the extra care and attention he lavished on their Paige.

Already, they could collectively admit that they were looking forward to the addition of a few new peas and pods. Finn continued to move up the corporate ladder at his job and met a gorgeous sloe-eyed man named Poe. There was stardust there, and they were all watching avidly to see how long it would take the relationship to shoot off into the stratosphere.

Paige seemed to have her own budding pod in the works. She cast a glance at Dear Dr. Doph as he had his arm securely wrapped around his new wife’s shoulders. He kept sneaking his own tender glances down at Paige’s newly protruding belly. And she was positively glowing.

  
_____________________

Theirs wasn’t a perfectly pleasant little pod existence all the time. They found themselves having to circle up around Rose as she dealt with the obsessive attention of a former boyfriend named Snap. Who turned out to be aptly named, as he did just that after she broke up with him. Social media did its very best job and helped flush out a few more women with other stories like hers. They all breathed a sigh of relief when that restraining order went into effect.

And Rey’s time working for Plutt ended in many emotional blows to her self-worth, the final one coming when he dared to raise his hand to her. Rose had to physically restrain Finn from retaliating when Rey texted them from the grimy bathroom she had locked herself into at the junkyard.

And then, the day Finn and Rose escorted Rey out of Plutt’s hellhole was the day Maz told them about her cancer diagnosis.

No, nothing in life ever is perfect. But they say perfect is the enemy of good. And each of them have had many opportunities to learn how very good life could be with the right peas in your pod.

And maybe, Rey thought wistfully as she made her way across the stage to accept that hard fought for diploma, sometime in the future, she and Ben might adopt or create their own little sweetpea. Maybe, even, both. A few times over.

Most pods do have five to six peas, after all.  



End file.
